Lori Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli have been sentenced today to time behind bars.
Loughlin and Giannulli pled guilty in May to crimes related to their involvement in the college admissions scandal dubbed “Operation Varsity Blues” by federal investigators. Loughlin and Giannulli were charged in March 2019 after paying William “Rick” Singer to nefariously help them get their daughters, Olivia Jade and Isabella, to gain admission into the University of Southern California.
Giannulli And Loughlin Will Do Time Behind Bars
Lori Loughlin has been sentenced to two months in federal prison and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, will be going to jail for five months for their roles in the scandal, which included paying $500,000 dollars to enlist Singer’s fraudulent help to get his daughter’s accepted to USC. Loughlin has also been ordered to pay a $100,000 fine and serve 100 hours of community service. Giannulli has been fined $250,000 and will be required to serve 250 hours of community service. Both will face two years of supervised release once they have done their time. At his sentencing, Gianulli stated,
I deeply regret the harm that my actions have caused my daughters, my wife and others. I take full responsibility for my conduct and I’m ready to accept the consequences and move forward with the lessons I’ve learned from this experience.
The scam presented their daughters as elite rowers and bribes paid by Loughlin and Giannulli through Singer to university officials got them accepted as members of the USC crew team, though there is no evidence either daughter is a rower. Olivia Jade is a social media influencer with a popular YouTube channel, but not, it seems, an athlete.
This Is The Second High-Profile Sentencing
While fellow actress Felicity Huffman pled guilty last year for her part in the scandal and served 11 days in prison in October 2019, Loughlin and Giannulli held out, preparing to take the charges to trial until abruptly changing their plea earlier this year. If the couple had gone to trial and lost, they could have been sentenced to up to 25 years in federal prison, though a term that long was unlikely. Giannulli has been ordered to surrender to the US Bureau of Prisons on November 2nd, 2020.
How The Tabloids Have Covered The Case
The sentencing closes another chapter in the long-running legal saga. It’s a saga that the supermarket tabloids have been all too happy to exploit. Gossip Cop has busted numerous false allegations over the last year-and-a-half related to the Loughlin, none of which were based in any kind of reality.
One of the most popular subjects for the tabloids to take up was how Lori Loughlin was supposedly preparing for prison. Another popular trope is that Loughlin and Giannulli are having serious marriage problems over the case. Yet another go-to topic for the supermarket tabloids has been a supposed breakdown in Loughlin’s relationship with her daughters, which is also patently false.
Gossip Cop will update this story when Loughlin is formally sentenced this afternoon.